“Helen,” Mother said, “make a list.”
She put a piece of paper on my desk and left the room.
November 25, 1916
Dear Mother,
I’ve married Peter Fagan. Believe me, I’ve never been happier in my life.
I know you’ll come to understand.
Your loving daughter,
Helen
I folded the letter and left it in the middle of the desk.
Warren’s truck rattled up the driveway at dusk, and as the scent of night settled around me, I felt the staircase vibrate as he climbed wearily to bed. When Mildred and Mother finally crept upstairs at nine thirty, I felt their bedroom doors close firmly behind them, so I got my suitcase, tiptoed out of my room, and left the house. I waited on Mildred’s front porch, my luggage packed in one tidy bag. Peter slipped hurriedly out of the woods and I felt his footsteps as he ran up the porch steps.
“Let’s go, Helen.” He took my suitcase and then my arm. “Now.”
A breeze shook the honeysuckle vines.
Just then the front door swung open, a rustle announcing that someone was coming out of the house. Peter held firmly to my hand, but Warren pushed past me and grabbed hold of him. Clutching the railing, I smelled the cold metal of a gun, and Warren’s yell split the air.
Peter pulled me toward him. “Leave us alone,” he said. “Helen’s coming with me.” He tried to lead me past Warren, but the strong scent of metal told me Warren had raised his Smith and Wesson and was pointing it right at Peter.
“No one tells us what to do with Helen.” The vibrations of Warren’s voice moved through the porch floorboards into my legs and I panicked. A cold, icy fear sluiced through me. Peter pushed me back, away from Warren. Alone by the railing I couldn’t breathe. Instead I inhaled fear—iron, bitter, metallic—rising from Peter’s jacket as he struggled with Warren.
The floorboards thudded as the two shoved each other, and I waited, helpless, for the air to split open: for my nostrils to fill with sulfur and gunpowder—and though Warren didn’t fire his gun, I knew. Even as Peter’s footsteps punched the porch floor, even as he was brash, a daredevil, even as his love for me was unwavering, his skin gave off the scent of a frightened animal caught in a trap. Because he faced the impenetrable fortress of my family.
He would never win, he couldn’t. No one could.
Let me go, I wanted to say.
I tried to run off the porch, but Warren blocked me at the railing as Peter’s scent drifted away into the woods.
I still held the railing, suddenly lightheaded, as Mother came out of the house and took my hand. I pushed her away. “I won’t go inside—no.” Mother left me alone on the porch, and complete darkness closed over me.
I remembered the time when I was six and sensed that Mother wished I would die. It’s not that she didn’t love me. She did. It was the overwhelming pull of me. Helen can’t hear. Helen can’t see. Helen can’t make her way from table to door, never mind make her way in the dangerous world.
That was when I began to crave being perfect. Mama, I’ll be good. A saint. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I promise to be good. This, the deaf-blind woman’s promise. I will reflect your desires all the days of my life. In return, you will never leave me.
But now I craved freedom. That night in my room I kept my suitcase packed. I knew Peter would be back, so all night I tossed in my white iron bed in Mildred’s house, gesturing with my fingers as if calling to him.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I wish I could have changed what I wanted, but my desire to leave only intensified. The next morning, scents of biscuits and eggs rose from the kitchen, but when Mildred knocked on my door I refused to come down to breakfast. I was lost in thought: Peter’s hands in my hair, the feeling of him by my side, the excitement of our wedding day—tomorrow, when I would be separated from my family, but united with the man I loved. An hour later, when Mildred tapped on my door for help with chores, I finally dressed and went downstairs.
On my way to the kitchen the aroma of tobacco told me Warren was nearby.
“Helen, you owe me a ‘good morning.’”
I tried to walk past, but he took my hands and held them tight.
“You tried to run off with that Yankee.”
“I’ll do it again.”
“You had no right to …”
“To what? Have a life, a family, like you, Mildred, and Mother do?”
“Your mother is racked with a migraine; my wife—your sister—refuses to accept that you would do this, but if you ever try …”
“What? You’ll use your gun again?”
“No. I won’t use that gun. Next time I’ll use one I actually fire.”
I stormed into the kitchen and slid closed the lock. When Warren rapped on the door, I refused to open it.
I had reached my limit. Mildred did not mention anything about last night. Instead, she turned from the counter where she was chopping apples for a Thanksgiving pie and said Mother had gone to her room with a headache. “Make her some tea, Helen.” She handed me the teakettle and placed it under the faucet. The cold water rushed over my hands as I awkwardly filled it, so Mildred took the kettle from me. “There’s Bailey,” she said. “Helen, go open the door and let him in.” I opened the back door and turned, expectantly. With a rush of warm air Warren’s hunting dog made his way into the kitchen and thumped his tail against my leg, bits of branches sharp in his fur.
“I’ve never seen such a mess,” Mildred said.
“Me either.”
“I’m talking about …”
“I know what you’re talking about, Mildred. Warren takes Bailey out with him nights, and that’s how he got like this. Give me the brush. I’ll clean Bailey up.”
Mildred put a steel brush in my hand, and with great vigor I moved it through the tangles.
“Mildred, will he …”
“Be out tonight? I didn’t ask. And he didn’t say.”
I had to warn Peter that it might not be safe to come tonight. But if I wrote him a letter, how would I get it to him? Mildred would see me at the mailbox; I couldn’t walk through the woods to downtown Montgomery; I couldn’t even get to the sidewalk without guidance. The air around me darkened.
“Helen, stop. You’re hurting Bailey.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never hurt a living thing.”
There was a long pause.
“Perhaps not on purpose. Remember Martha Washington?”
“Who?”
“The little Negro girl, the daughter of Mother’s cook. She was seven, you were five. You used to play with her. One day something enraged you—God knows what—so you grabbed Mother’s scissors and cut off all of Martha’s curls.”
“So?”
“You were always … determined to get your own way.” Mildred took the brush from my hands.
I had to contact Peter. Was there a chance that Mildred would speak up for me?
“Mildred, I …” I wanted to tell her that I was sorry.
“He’s my husband, Helen.” Through the floor I felt the vibrations of Warren chopping wood in the yard. “He paced our bedroom all night. He feels responsible for you.”
“Could you … talk to him?”
There was a long pause as Mildred moved to the table. “Do you remember what happened after you cut off Martha Washington’s hair?”
“No.”
“She was punished for causing trouble. I was there. Her mother took her and whipped her good for ‘disrupting Miss Helen,’ but worst of all for disturbing the household—Mother was beside herself. I can’t be a go-between for you with Warren or Mother. Can you understand, Helen?” Mildred’s hand stopped spelling in mine.
The stomp of Warren’s boots on the back steps made us pull apart.
Why couldn’t I have what was my right? I wanted to protest. I was unable to leave, unable to reach out to Peter, but I needed him to comfort me. For him I would make any sacrifice.
“He’s a good man, Helen,” Mildred said.
“I know.”
“He just wants what’s right for you, for all of us.”
“Yes.”
“But Risa.”
“Risa?”
“The girl who writes Braille, like you and … Peter do. She’ll be here at two this afternoon. To … do. . . for you.”